"The sky is mixed, but there is some blue, and the motion of skating, and the lightness and coldness of the air involve quite clearly for me a beauty, a moral beauty."
John Cheever
Seeing the Skies
There are literally a rainbow of colors that reach our eyes from the skies on any one day. The light that reaches the rods and cones of our eyes, comes from scattered light. Dust, salt, air molecules and water droplets scatter the colors of light from clouds in different ways. The two primary methods for scattering light from the sun are Rayleigh scattering resulting in blue skies and Mie scattering resulting in the shades of white to grey colors of clouds. A Georgia
State University web site explains the mechanics of the scattering techniques and offers an intriguing technique to use your laptop to analyze colors from digital pictures.
Weather Map Analysis
A revolutionary method of weather map analysis and interpretation evolved in Norway before and during WWI principally by Vilhelm and his son, Jacob Bjerknes. The Bergen Norway School of weather analysis based its approach on the Polar Front Theory of J. Bjerknes noted from his study of a dense network of surface observations in and around Scandinavia. A complete article on the development of the cyclone model -still used today by meteorologists worldwide- is available here in a University of Oklahoma article.
Workshop Reference Materials
1. Atmospheric Thermodynamic Diagram (SkewT logP) Manual
2. SkewT logP Chart for March 24, 2009
2. Surface Pressure Weather Analysis for February 28, 2009
3. GOES Water Vapor Satellite Image for March 1, 2009
4. 500 Millibar (Upper AIr) Analysis for March 1, 2009
March 26, 2009 Science Afternoon at NIST
Sky Writers
"The sky is mixed, but there is some blue, and the motion of skating, and the lightness and coldness of the air involve quite clearly for me a beauty, a moral beauty."
John Cheever
Seeing the Skies
There are literally a rainbow of colors that reach our eyes from the skies on any one day. The light that reaches the rods and cones of our eyes, comes from scattered light. Dust, salt, air molecules and water droplets scatter the colors of light from clouds in different ways. The two primary methods for scattering light from the sun are Rayleigh scattering resulting in blue skies and Mie scattering resulting in the shades of white to grey colors of clouds. A GeorgiaState University web site explains the mechanics of the scattering techniques and offers an intriguing technique to use your laptop to analyze colors from digital pictures.
Weather Map Analysis
A revolutionary method of weather map analysis and interpretation evolved in Norway before and during WWI principally by Vilhelm and his son, Jacob Bjerknes. The Bergen Norway School of weather analysis based its approach on the Polar Front Theory of J. Bjerknes noted from his study of a dense network of surface observations in and around Scandinavia. A complete article on the development of the cyclone model -still used today by meteorologists worldwide- is available here in a University of Oklahoma article.Workshop Reference Materials
1. Atmospheric Thermodynamic Diagram (SkewT logP) Manual2. SkewT logP Chart for March 24, 2009
2. Surface Pressure Weather Analysis for February 28, 2009
3. GOES Water Vapor Satellite Image for March 1, 2009
4. 500 Millibar (Upper AIr) Analysis for March 1, 2009
Other Useful Links
1. Washington Post Video: Launching a Weather Balloon at Dulles2. Sky Awareness Week Information
3. NOAA Library Historical Daily Weather Maps (1871-2002); (2003-present)
4. Is the U.S. climate getting more extreme? Dr. Jeff Master's Wunderblog
5. New York Times Science Page: Cyclones
6. Capitol Weather Gang Blog: In the Shadow of Darwin: The Inventor of Forecasting
7. Does water freeze at 0 Celsius/ 32 Fahrenheit? Lee Grenci Blog
8. If a tornado is nearby, should you get out of your car? Capital Weather Gang Blog